


we were both born today

by atlas_oulast



Series: Thalia McCarthy Fics [2]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Babies, Childbirth, Fluff & Angst, Gen, Hospitals, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Past Abuse, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Female/Male Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 13:33:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18624280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlas_oulast/pseuds/atlas_oulast
Summary: Thalia, and the day she gave birth to the kid she never meant to have, but wouldn’t give up for anything.





	we were both born today

**Author's Note:**

> title from everything changes from waitress; the song is a really good listen for this fic, as well as pretty much any song in the waitress cast album.
> 
> tw for graphic descriptions of childbirth, labour, mentioned/implied past abuse, and some drugs (an epidural)

Thalia had woken up in the middle of a random evening nap the day before giving birth to contractions beginning, and she’d felt her blood run ice cold, because after nine months, now she was going to have a freaking baby. Nine fucking months of not being able to sleep comfortably but nine months of being constantly tired later, and... and now she was in labour.

She didn’t tell Jeremy or anyone else immediately, she went back to sleep, woke up a little while later and had her last meal without a baby, just some carrots and sliced cucumbers, being unable to stomach much more than that right now. The contractions fucking sucked, and she was all nauseous, not that she hadn’t been dealing with nausea all nine months, but it was especially annoying now.

She tried to take a relaxing bath, but she kinda failed, not being able to quite relax because her hours before he had a baby were numbered, so she got out, wrapped herself in her fluffy neon green robe, and fallen asleep back in bed, a good eight blankets piled up over her.

The next morning, though surprised that she’d mangaged to sleep the whole night and only wake up in minor pain twice, she laid in bed for a full hour, timing contractions in her head, and then called Jeremy.

He picked up, sounding a pretty tired, and Thalia realised that it was still only six in the morning, he would’ve only just got up for school a little while ago, and lastly, Jeremy was not a morning person, at all.

“Guess what? You don’t need to go to school today!” Thalia said, voice strained from pain but trying to sound cheery.

“What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“I’ve been having contractions since yesterday, and I think it’s time now.” Thalia bit her lip as another contraction came through. “Whew, yeah, it’s definitely time.”

“Do you need me to pick you up?”

“Yes, please. And maybe I’ll get dressed in the meantime.” She tried to laugh but it didn’t sound quite right.

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Do you need anything?”

“I... hmm... oh! If you have like, a Coke or something rolling around, in a can and not in a bottle, because cans are superior to bottles, and you brought said Coke, I might just kiss the ground you walked on for the rest of your life and mine. I dunno, I just really want carbonated sugar right now.”

“I’ll bring you a Coke.”

“Thanks. See you in a bit.”

“Bye.”

Thalia tossed her phone onto the bed after she hung it up and walked over to her dresser, opening up the drawer that was at her torso level, and finding the blue dress she’d found at the thrift store one day, back when she was only six months pregnant and fucking tiny compared to now. 

The hospital she’d decided to deliver in let you birth in whatever you wanted as long as it was some sort of wide dress slash nightgown (even though it’d probably end up getting pushed up to her boobs or something) and Thalia had shopped around for a dress, since hospital gowns were the bane of her existence, until she’d found this ones.

It was just hanging there on the rack, among all the old lady dresses, a simple light blue dress with no clinching shit at the waist, short sleeves, and with little pale pink polka dots scattered all over it. It was so freaking soft, it wasn’t overly old lady-ish, it was perfect, and now she was going to ruin it by having a baby while wearing it.

She shucked off the robe and threw it on the floor, deciding to pick it up later, when she got back, and considered wearing a bra, before deciding against it, since the dress was baggy enough that her nipples wouldn’t poke out, and even if they did, who cared? Thalia was having a baby, so she could wear whatever. So there.

Underwear, though, she did put that on, and and then the dress went on, and her Birkenstock’s, because like she’d said, she was having a baby, so what better time to be a fashion disaster? Thalia also grabbed her big, fluffy, soft knit grey cardigan, and finding herself still freezing, got a big, teal plush blanket from her bed before going outside, phone and pre-prepared When I End Up Having A Baby bag in hand. 

It was the middle of January, after all, and she’d been conserving money the past few months by getting more blankets rather than turn up the heat.

Thalia sat down on a bench outside to wait for Jeremy, internally cursing at the freezing cold tempatures outside. Why couldn’t she have had a baby in June or something?

Finally, Jeremy pulled up in his dad’s beat up old car, and Thalia gratefully toddled over, dropping her blanket by accident while trying to open the passenger door _and_ having another contraction right then. 

Thalia cursed out loud this time.

Jeremy hopped out quickly and went to go help her, taking her bag and phone from her and then opening the door while at the same time picking up the blanket and wrapping it back around Thalia, like a burrito, and then added one on top that he’d brought from home before helping her in, even reaching over to buckle her in, then handing her her bag and phone.

Thalia plugged her phone into the empty cord plugged into the center console while Jeremy went back around to get back in, and then totally zoned out staring at the screen, even after it darkened again. When she came back to Earth, Jeremy was buckled in and driving out of the parking lot of the apartment complex.

“Oh, here’s your pop,” Jeremy said, handing her a cold can of Cherry Coke. 

Thalia made a happy noise and popped it open, smiling at the hissing noise it made while it fizzed.

“Jeremy Heere, you are an absolute godsend. An angel. Be prepared to have me following you around for the rest of your life with a baby strapped to my back kissing the cold ground after your angelic feet have touched it.”

Jeremy snorted. “No problem. If there’s, like, food that you want, too, I can always pick some up..”

“Nah, I’m not really- _shit_ \- um, hungry, right now. Sorry, just the pain of my body opening it’s mouth to barf out a baby. Or whatever.”

Thalia then proceeded to down half the can of the soda in one go, and goddamn, Cherry Coke never tasted so good. She wanted more, but she put the can into the cup holder and told herself to wait a bit, but the next thing she knew, Jeremy was shaking her awake gently, his hand on her shoulder.

“We’re here, Thalia,” he said gently, and Thalia nodded blearily, put her phone into her bag, and waited until Jeremy got out and came around to help her out, rather than get out herself. Ever since she hit seven months, he’d started helping her out of the car whenever he drove her anywhere, and it was sweet and Thalia was eternally grateful. It was the little things that counted.

So, bundle of blankets and all, she walked slowly to the front door of the hospital, stopping once and leaning heavily against Jeremy as another contraction rippled though, and it hurt like a son of a bitch.

After she’d recovered from that, they made it the rest of the way to the door, and then up to the front desk.

“So, I’m kinda in labour..” Thalia said to the receptionist, still visibly in pain from the last contraction.

“Do you have a scheduled delivery?”

“No. But this child is coming, schedule or no.”

“How often are your contractions coming?”

“Every five to... eight-ish minutes, for at least the last hour? Pretty often.”

“And full name?”

“Thalia Joyce McCarthy.”

“Alright.” The receptionist picked up a phone and pressed a button on it. “Rhonda and Jaime to the front desk? We have a number three oh three four seven. Repeat, a number three oh three four seven.”

So Thalia and Jeremy stood there awkwardly for a few minutes until a dude and lady with a ponytail came down the hall, the lady pushing a wheelchair.

“Hi, I’m Rhonda, I’ll be helping you have a baby, and Jaime will be helping me help you,” the lady with the ponytail said. “Let’s go get you settled. Go ahead and board the royal chariot.”

So Thalia got to sit down in the wheelchair, which was awesome because she really really didn’t feel like standing up very much right now, and Jeremy followed along, somehow carrying his own phone, Thalia’s half finished Cherry Coke, and one of the blankets, which she didn’t remember getting rid of, but oh well.

First they went to the nurse’s station in the maternity ward, and Thalia only had eight fracking tons of paperwork to do, and a lot extra than a usual mom would have to because she was an emancipated minor and her only living parent was incarcerated. 

Jeremy helped her with questions that her tired pregnancy brain couldn’t remember, even though most of them were mundane and stuff she totally should know, like her date of birth (October 5th, 2001), the date of her father’s arrest (August 22nd, 2018), his sentence (Eight years) and the date that her emancipation order went into effect (November 3rd, 2018.)

Finally, the paperwork was complete, and Thalia was again wheeled off down the halls, this time to a room where there wasn’t paperwork waiting for her. The walls were painted pink and while it was windowless and small, it was private, and Thalia didn’t particularly feel like sharing a room with a stranger at the moment.

Once she got to pee on a stick in the adjacent bathroom, Thalia finally got to hop into the hospital bed in that room, and Rhonda checked her vitals, asked her questions, and Jeremy stood by awkwardly.

When the actual lady who was going to deliver the baby arrived (Lily) Jeremy got kicked out; mostly because Lily needed to do some exams Down There, so they sent him out with the blankets they’d brought (just in case, so as not to ruin them or whatever) and Thalia got to have That Area poked and prodded.

Lily had poked and prodded her a couple times before, but this time was a little more intense, especially since Rhonda and Jaime had to attach shit to her arms meanwhile, and Thalia wanted to cry, thank you very much.

As soon as she was done, Lily announced that she probably had a few hours before the second stage of labour would set in, but that she came at a good time. Jeremy was brought back in, and all Thalia wanted at that moment was a cool washcloth and all the blankets and Jeremy.

So Jaime got her a cool washcloth and once the blankets were piled back on her, it was almost heaven, considering that she was in labour.

“Hit the nurse call button if you need anything else, we’ll all be checking in on you periodically,” Rhonda said, as the trio left the room.

So now it was just Jeremy and Thalia, and Thalia breathed a sigh of relief.

“Too many people,” she mumbled, throwing her head back onto the pillows and breathing heavily as she felt another contraction about to come through.

“Do you want a hug?” Jeremy asked

“Can you just... hold me? Please?” Thalia looked up at him, and almost started crying as the contraction came through for real. “Wait, wait a second, let it... god I hate this. Okay, now.” She didn’t want Jeremy climbing all over the bed while she had a contraction, it might make it worse

Jeremy climbed up gently on the side away from the IV, letting his sneakered feet hang off the bed as he held Thalia close, a bit awkwardly considering her ginormous belly and the angle he was holding her at.

Thalia, despite envisioning a quick birth, a little painful but not awful, with no tears shed, began to cry softly as Jeremy held her.

“I’m about to have a baby... this is really happening,” Thalia said softly, wiping her cheeks of the rebellious tears.

She couldn’t help but remember the night she’d sealed her fate, how hot and heavy it was in that random person’s house at that fucking party, how drunk she was, and then the tall douchebag comforting her when she started crying because she was so drunk and confused and sad and then next thing Thalia knew he was on top of her.

She hadn’t even known his name until the next day, when he, Troy Selwater, said she was a pretty girl. Thalia had walked away, she was a lesbian, why had she let him do that in the first place... and then a few weeks later she realised she was pregnant.

Thalia didn’t need a goddamn baby, but here she was. Troy’s entitled mother, dear Patty Selwater, had threatened her with a lawsuit if she got an abortion or gave the baby up, and she had still been suing her dad at the time for all the times he’d hit her. She couldn’t do another one.

“You’re gonna be okay,” Jeremy said, bringing her back to the hospital, stroking her hair. “You’re gonna be okay.”

“Will I? I’m not even a legal adult, I work at McDonald’s and I have to take care of this baby... I have to bring it to school! And not fail school in the meantime, and also what if I can’t afford a babysitter on any given day and end up loosing my job? I already know I’m not going to college so that frees up money but still! I work in fast food and art. How am I going to raise a kid on that? I tried getting a better job, it didn’t work because I’ve been pregnant and I’m not an adult, and I do have money put away because I sold the house and all but-“

“You’re smarter than you know, you’re gonna figure it out.”

“..What if I don’t?” Horror film images surfaced in her mind, of her loosing her job and failing school and the baby getting really sick and-

“You’ve got people to help you out.”

“I know, I know but you know how I am about asking people to help me..”

“I’ll help you with the baby and stuff. Besides, you’re overthinking it. You’re going to be a great mom, and I’ll help you find a better job when you’re ready.”

“You don’t need to do that..”

“But I want to.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Jeremy. If I had to be sitting here alone... actually, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here at all.”

“I’m going to help you. You’re my friend and I’m going to help you.”

Thalia cried out as another contraction came through, and she rested her head on Jeremy’s shoulder and let herself cry, because it hurt so much and she was so, so scared.

“I’ve got you.”

She clung to him as the contraction sweeped through, and it was a full body relax when it finally ended, letting her head go limp against Jeremy and she closed her eyes softly.

“Are you okay?” Jeremy asked, gentle and concerned and careful.

“I’m fine,” Thalia said. She grabbed his hand and held onto it like a lifeline, and he went to go rub her back, slowly, gently, and Thalia breathed in, breathed out, breathed in, breathed out.

She couldn’t fully relax like this, though, and eventually began to itching to move.

“Can you help me walk up and down the halls, Jeremy? I just... I need to move around.”

“Yeah, of course” he said, getting up and going to the other side of the bed to help her up, and to wheel along the IV pole.

Thalia got up slowly, and didn’t bother putting on shoes. Sure, there could be years worth of grime and human waste on those floors, but they looked clean-ish, and just plain didn’t feel like wearing shoes right now.

The walk was slow, careful, with Thalia leaning heavily, almost entirely, on Jeremy, and him holding her, one hand supporting her back and rubbing his thumb on her arm on that side, back and forth and back and forth, and his other arm rolling along the IV pole.

She walked slowly, almost making it look difficult, and managed to walk through most of her contractions, but as they walked up and down those halls, she got more tired and her contractions got worse, even though it was only bordering on eleven in the morning.

Finally, a particularly painful contraction came through, and Thalia cried out, putting almost all of her weight on Jeremy and being absolutely unable to walk through this.

“That one was really bad,” Thalia whimpered, not wanting to start walking again.

“Do you wanna go back? They’re getting closer together, they’re probably going to want to get going now..”

“How far away are we?”

“...I dunno.”

“Guess we’ll find out,” Thalia said, smiling ruefully through the pain. And it was back to the slow walk, one step, three back and forths with the thumb, another step, a stumble, Jeremy catching her, he always caught her, no matter what.

Finally, they made it back, and Thalia tried to curl in on herself in bed and failed. She didn’t really regret walking, she was just tired and in so much freaking pain.

It was not even five minutes later when Rhonda and Lily came back in, and checked her up, but everything seemed to be fine.

“Alright, Miss Thalia, you’re you’re good to go for now, and you can have an epidural whenever you want, it just might take awhile for it to kick in,” Lily said. “You’re going great, and everything is progressing smoothly and perfectly.”

Thalia bit her lip. “Can I... I’m really hurting.”

“You wanna go ahead and do your epidural now?”

“As long as it doesn’t wear off before I have the baby?”

“It won’t. It’s a tube, it’ll keep coming in.”

“Okay, then yeah.”

So the next thing Thalia knew, she was lying on her side, and got a shot of anaesthesia into her back, and then she felt a pressure back there, and then the anaesthesia nurse (Meryl) got up.

“Now we’ll just put the catheter in and you’ll be good to go, missy,” Meryl said.

So Thalia got a flipping catheter, and some monitors on her belly, but it was a little difficult to feel them put the monitors on; clearly because she had an epidural going on.

“No more walking around for me,” Thalia said, trying to make it sound joking but it ended up sounding weary.

“Um, Christine wants to know, can she come by during lunch?” Jeremy asked, phone in hand. “She says she’ll bring food..”

“Oh, I can’t really eat with an epidural, and I feel like I’d throw up, anyway. But she’s welcome to come join the party, and bring you food, anyway.”

“Oh, oh, okay. I’ll tell her.”

So twenty minutes later, Christine showed up a time the door with a bag of McDonald’s and a smile. “Hi! Jeremy said you couldn’t eat right now but I brought stress balls and stuff for you, and I brought Jeremy food, anyway.”

Christine gave Jeremy the bag, and opened up her backpack to find one of those squishy toys, in the shape of a narwhal, as well as two stress balls, and handed them to Thalia.

“Thanks, Christine,” Thalia said, smiling weakly and beginning to knead the squishy narwhal between her hands.

“No problem.”

The hours passed slowly, and luckily, Thalia wasn’t in nearly so much pain anymore. She fell asleep at one point, but couldn’t stay asleep, and still couldn’t get comfortable, even with pillows under her hips and supporting her from the shoulders up and everywhere in between, that wouldn’t block the epidural tubes or belly monitors. Nor could she move without assistance, which she had to keep doing, and it was getting old.

Thalia tried to watch a movie on Christine’s laptop, The Empire Strikes Back, but couldn’t focus. She tried playing Words With Friends, but her brain wasn’t working all that well at that moment. She tried listening to Jeremy read to her from Ramona’s World, but still couldn’t focus.

“This sucks,” she said finally. “It really sucks.”

“I think you’re pretty far along, you should be almost there. You’ve been in labour for awhile,” Christine said.

“What time is it?”

“Four thirty six,” Jeremy piped up.

“Geez, Christine, did you ever go back to school?”

“Oh, we had an early dismissal today, anyway.”

“Oh, that completely slipped my mind. Thanks for staying with me, though, regardless of the dismissal time. You too, Jeremy.”

“No problem,” Christine said.

“Someone needs to be with you, anyway,” Jeremy said.

“But, anyways, if it’s four forty-ish, and my contractions started, or at least got obvious, around eight last night, that’s...” It was easy math, but Thalia’s brain quite simply wasn’t working right and she couldn’t wrap her head around the question. “I know I’m supposed to be good at math but someone please do that for me.”

“Twenty hours and forty minutes. I think,” Christine said.

“Jesus. I’d love this to please be over by now.”

“I want to meet your new kid,” Christine said.

“At this rate, you’ll be in your forties by then,” Thalia joked wearily.

“I’ll wait that long, don’t worry,” Jeremy said, giving her hand a squeeze. Christine nodded in agreement.

“Sorry I’m being so grouchy and not being able to relax and stuff, I just-“

“Thalia, you are allowed to be grouchy now more than ever, you’re having a baby,” Jeremy said seriously. “Don’t be sorry.”

“I guess you’re right..”

“No, he’s definitely, one hundred percent correct,” Christine insisted.

Thankfully, labour didn’t last much longer, just maybe twenty minutes and Thalia let out a sudden, breathy gasp.

“I have a little bit of feeling downstairs, and like... shit, shit fuck, mother _fucker_ -“

“Are you hurt?”

“I think it’s the urge to push they all talk about.”

Christine had frantically slammed down the nurse call button as soon as the words had left Thalia’s mouth.

Jaime was the one to come in, and Thalia gave him a desperate look. “I think it’s happening.”

“I’ll go get Dr. Yigel.” And then he was gone.

“Who?” Thalia asked weakly, even though he was already gone.

“Lily Yigel. Your birth doctor... or whatever it’s called,” Jeremy supplied.

“Oh...”

Jaime came back, but also with Lily and Rhonda and a new nurse, and they started clicking her bed out of the stationary position as Lily started looking around down there.

“Ten centimetres! Let’s go have a baby, huh?” Lily exclaimed excitedly.

“I... I’m not ready!” Thalia cried out frantically. “I just... I don’t want to...”

Jeremy squeezed her hand comfortingly. “You’re gonna be okay, Thalia, I promise.”

“Are either of you going with her to the delivery room?” Rhonda asked, taking away all the extra pillows and blankets as she spoke. Rude.

Jeremy looked pale at the thought, so Christine stepped up. “I’ll go.”

“Are you sure, Christine, you don’t have to..” Thalia trailed off as Lily and Rhonda detached the bed and started to wheel her out.

“I’m sure!” Christine cried, running after her. Jaime pulled her aside and lead her away, saying he’d get her ‘suited up’ to be in the delivery room, which made no sense; why did Christine have to be in scrubs? She wasn’t giving birth like Thalia or helping deliver.

She didn’t have much time to think about it, as she was being pushed down the hall at a dizzying pace, and then they were in the delivery room, the bed was put back into a stationary position, and then Lily was poking around down there again.

Christine came in maybe a minute later, and offered her hand to Thalia, who took it gratefully and clutched it tightly.

“Let’s try a push, Thalia,” Lily said, and Thalia pushed, right there, on her side, legs spread awkwardly. The faint feeling that escaped the epidural was... wow. It was really intense and she would never feel like pushing out a poop would be that hard again. She really didn’t like it. Would not recommend.

“Push again!”

That was how it went, on and on and on, push after push, Thalia sweating heavily and hating every moment, and the baby didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

“Okay, let’s try a different position. Semi prone,” Lily ordered.

Suddenly, pillows were getting pushed under limbs and Thalia was being pushed and pulled into the correct position, and she began crying, because she wanted this to be over and even with the epidural it was so _much_ and so many people were touching her, and-

“Push!”

Thalia gripped Christine desperately and pushed, and then she heard a the cry of a baby, and saw glimpses of it, being handled with eight sets of hands, towelling it off and then it was gently placed on her chest.

“It’s a girl,” Lily said simply, a smile on her face.

Thalia rushed to change position while still supporting the epidural tube, holding the baby as it cried and cried and she’d never heard a sound more beautiful.

The epidural was removed, and Thalia was told she could roll onto her back, and more pillows were added to support her back but Thalia’s full attention was on this baby in her arms, how it- _she_ \- was staring up at her with big blue eyes - how had she ended up with blue eyes? and how pink she was and she began whispering to the baby, telling her instinctually that it was okay, she was okay, and the baby slowly calmed.

“Alright, mom, can we go ahead and weigh her now?” That was Lily, breaking her out of her focus on the baby.

“Y-yeah,” Thalia said quietly, and then the baby was gone, people fussing over her, and people were fussing over her, too.

“You did great, Thalia,” Christine said, looking relieved and she had a big smile. It was then that Thalia realised she herself also had a smile on, a small smile of absolute wonder.

“I... I...” Thalia couldn’t talk or think straight, and she didn’t want to. Christine just smiled at her and Rhonda came over and offered Thalia a cold washcloth for her forehead, which she accepted instantly, letting out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding when it touched her flushed skin.

Lily handed the baby back, now wrapped in a pale pink blanket. “Eight pounds, six ounces, ten fingers and ten toes, twenty inches long. She’s a perfect, healthy little girl.”

Thalia stared in wonderment at the baby’s little face, fast asleep and probably tired from the birth. She was, too, but didn’t really want to go to sleep, when she had this baby right now.

She held the baby for a long, long time, not talking much, breastfeeding at the suggestion of Lily and watching in wonderment as the baby hungrily sucked, how beautiful the baby was, and afterwards then she just held the baby quietly, until Rhonda said that it’d been almost two hours, and she could shower now, and Thalia reluctantly handed off the baby.

“You’ll get her back once you’ve showered and eaten,” Rhonda said gently.

It was that new nurse, who was apparently named Trish, who helped her up. Thalia was still a little numb from the epidural, so she had to be helped into the wheelchair and then to the bathroom, and then to shower at all.

Thalia was far too tired to be embarrassed, and Trish helped her shower slowly. Hot water, and she was handed a washcloth with the body wash that Thalia had brought from home already on it, and Trish kept her from falling over from numbness, washed her hair for her.

And then it was over, and Thalia hadn’t even realised. She was in a daze, feeling drained and elated but dazed, and Trish helped her dry off and put on her other nightgown that she’d brought and some underwear with big heavy glorified period pads already stuck in. 

Then Trish put her back in the wheelchair before handing her off to another new nurse, Trish now leaving, going to go change out of her now soaked scrubs.

“What’s your name?” Thalia asked the nurse pushing her down the hall. “There was Rhonda and Jaime and Lily and Meryl and then Trish, so what about you?”

“I’m Regina,” the nurse said, smiling at her.

“Rhonda and Jaime and Lily and Meryl and Trish and Regina,” Thalia recited to herself. Regina chuckled a little.

“Yeah, I know what your brain is like right after giving birth,” she said. “You’re going to be okay.”

And then Thalia was back in the old room, back in the bed, though probably a new bed, now, or maybe just the sheets had been changed? But she didn’t remember being helped into bed, or even turning into the room, the first thing she remembered next was Jeremy spreading the two extra blankets over her, giving her a warm smile when she looked up at him.

“Rhonda and Jaime and Lily and Meryl and Trish and Regina,” Thalia recited again. “And Jeremy.”

“How do you feel, Thalia?” Jeremy asked gently.

Thalia didn’t know, but she didn’t know how to convey that, so she made a face that she hoped properly expressed her current emotions.

“...Are you okay?”

Apparently it hadn’t worked after all.

“Tired. And hungry. And... a lot,” Thalia got out.

“Christine went to the bathroom to change into her regular clothes, and then she’ll go get food. What do you want to eat? Whatever you want,” Jeremy said.

Thalia thought about it for a moment. “A big, really big burrito, but with McDonald’s French fries.”

Jeremy nodded seriously. “What do you want to drink?”

“A really big Mr. Pibb.” Thalia turned back to Regina. “Can I... baby... while she’s getting..” she should be feeling shy about asking for her baby, it was _her_ baby. Her baby. Her _baby_. She was still getting used to that.

“Of course, I’ll go get her,” Regina said, walking off briskly.

“Christine said you did really well during birth, even though you had to push fifty times before it- she- came out,” Jeremy said, offering his hand for her to hold, which she accepted gratefully and held tightly.

“It was _fifty_?”

“Apparently she and one of the nurses were counting.”

“I just remember... lots of pushing, but I couldn’t feel it all that much, though. And it wouldn’t come out. And then they put me in a different position and it came out right away.”

“...Wow.”

Just then, Christine came in, back in her regular clothes, and not those awful scrubs. 

“So, Thalia, what’s for dinner?” Christine asked.

Thalia tried to tell her, but ended up stuttering and being too shy, suddenly to say, and shot Jeremy a desperate glance.

"A big burrito, McDonald's fries, and a big Mr. Pibb," Jeremy supplied.

"I can do that," Christine said. "I'll try and be quick."

And then Regina came back in with the baby and handed her to Christine, all bundled up in that pale pink blanket and now a matching pale pink hat, a little hat, she was so so tiny and adorable.

Jeremy looked at her, leaning over to study the baby. Thalia’s gaze never left the baby, and then she started crying.

“She’s so beautiful, Jeremy, she’s perfect and I want to hold her close forever and protect her from all the evilness in the world. She’s so perfect.” 

“She’s beautiful.”

 “She’s more perfect than I ever could’ve imagined. She doesn’t even have the right to be this pretty, I mean, look at her parents!” Thalia laughed, weary, but not the same weary, forced laughter she’d had in labour.

“She looks just like you. And you’re beautiful too. You’re both beautiful.”

“I made a human being. A tiny little human.”

“You did, and she’s beautiful.”

“It’s... it’s... this feeling... like a butterfly in my chest... i just... I love her so much, Jeremy. So much.” 

“How does it feel, being a mom now?”

Thalia shook her head and smiled wider than the small, wondering little smile she’d had on before. “Insane. Like I’m way older than I actually am, but in a good way.”

“You’ll be a great mom.”

Thalia held the baby close, leaning down to gently kiss her sleeping face, a kiss right on her little forehead. She was so little and adorable and Thalia’s heart was so full of love.

“My favourite lesbian makes cute children,” Jeremy said, meeting Thalia’s gaze and trying to use his eyes to convey how much he loved her. 

Thalia got the message.

“I love you. And my new baby.”

“I love you and the new baby as well. Hey, by the way, what’s the baby’s name?” Jeremy asked.

“I think I knew from the moment she was born. Olive Lorelai McCarthy.” 

“Olive is adorable.”

“She is.”

Thalia and Jeremy gazed at the baby- _Olive_ \- for almost forever, though it felt like no time it all by the time Christine came in with a bag of Moe’s, with McDonald’s fries tucked inside the bag, and in the other hand a large drink cup, sweating. 

“Thank you, Christine,” Thalia said, handing Jeremy the baby so she could eat. Jeremy seemed transfixed by the baby, and kept watching every little move she made. 

Christine sat down next to Jeremy and she, too, watched the baby, also taking a turn to hold her. Thalia, though, ate like she hadn’t seen food in weeks, when it’d really been...

“What time is it?” Thalia asked.

Christine checked her phone; Jeremy was occupied with Olive. “Nine forty three.”

“Wow.”

“You had the baby at six thirteen, and then you went to take a shower around eight, and that was a long shower.” 

“I think I was still numb, one of the nurses, Trish, had to help me.” 

“Honestly, that’s probably really good. You looked like you might’ve passed out if you tried to shower by yourself.” 

“Oh, well,” Thalia said, going in for another bite of her burrito, and didn’t speak again until she was done eating. 

“I want to go home.”

“The nurse said for one of us to the nurse’s station when you wanted to leave, I think you need some sort of quick checkup or something. I’ll go see,” and then Christine walked out the door, and returned with Rhonda.

“Just gotta check you up a bit, you’ll need to fill out some forms, and then you’ll be good to go,” Rhonda said.

The checkup was pretty quick and painless, and the forms were just the birth certificate and certificate of live birth, and a few other things, and then Rhonda went to go get a wheelchair.

Jeremy and Rhonda gently helped Thalia up and into the chair, Thalia, who still wasn’t really great with standing up for very long at the moment. Then Thalia wasn’t handed Olive, and then told that Olive needed to be changed into the baby clothes that Thalia had brought along so that she could sit in her car seat correctly.

Jeremy and Thalia had bought the car seat a few months ago, something simple but cheap but durable, and it had sat collecting dust in Thalia’s closet until they’d wiped it down and put it in Jeremy’s car when she was eight months along, knowing that Jeremy would likely at least drive her home from the hospital, even if she didn’t go there in his car.

So Thalia very quickly changed Olive’s diaper for the first time, and put her in a tiny footie onesie pajamas number, with navy blue and white stripes going across, and little shiny silver snaps instead of buttons.

Then they finally went down the hall, into the elevator, down more halls, then through the main exit to the outside, Thalia pushed by Rhonda, Thalia holding Olive close sitting in a wheelchair being pushed by Rhonda.

The outside air was chill and Thalia started shivering at once and holding Olive closer. Rhonda took Olive from her at the car and helped Christine buckle her in and gently tuck the blanket around her, and Jeremy helped Thalia out of the wheelchair and initially into the passenger seat, until she protested and insisted on being in the backseat with Olive.

She was buckled in and covered with her cardigan and those two blankets, and Thalia laid out with her head resting on the edge of the baby’s car seat, one hand gently on Olive’s little stomach, her first finger guided to Olive’s soft tiny hand, where it was then clutched with her tiny, tiny soft new fingers. Her finger, the only thing that her baby’s tiny little hand was able to hold.

Thalia fell asleep almost immediately, the Mr. Pibb having absolutely no effect on her being extremely fucking tired from over twenty fucking hours of labour, and she slept the entire drive to her apartment, and had to be shaken awake in the parking lot. 

Thalia was clearly going to need to be helped up the seven flights of stairs to her apartment, so Jeremy told her that he’d take Olive up first and then come back for her. 

Thalia only blearily nodded and fell back asleep while waiting, although Jeremy only took a little over five minutes.

He shook her awake again, and got her to stand and lean against the car. He helped her into her cardigan, pulling the sleeves over her arms gently, then wrapped her in both of the two blankets, and shut the door quickly.

The attempted trip upstairs took nearly twenty minutes, Thalia taking about three steps every thirty seconds, and it was slow and inefficient, so three or four flights up, gave up, leading Thalia back downstairs and into the lobby, ringing the bell on the counter a good ten times to get the landlady to come down.

“Sorry, she just gave birth, can we use your elevator?” The elevator was private, and only used by handicapped tenants and the landlady and the landlady’s family. 

“Oh, congratulations! Sure she can use the elevator.” The landlady quickly went over and unlocked the elevator (yes, for some reason it was usually locked, for what reason Jeremy didn’t know and Thalia may have known, but was too far out of it to explain it, or say anything but a bleary, half asleep “Thank you,” to the landlady. 

“Of course, get some rest, and good luck with the baby,” and then Jeremy pushed the number seven button, the doors shut, and they went up, up, up, and were dropped off on the outside hallway leading to the apartments.

Thalia’s apartment was apartment 716, so they had to walk a bit since the elevator dropped them off around apartment 701, so Jeremy pulled the poor girl along gently, but with a bit of purpose in his step, wanting to get to someplace warm.

He’d locked the door after dropping off Olive, so he had to get the key back out of his pocket and unlock the door, and then pulled Thalia in and immediately guided her to the bed, where he’d semi neatly remade the bed so that all she had to do was climb in and Jeremy’s pulled the covers over her quickly, and then added the two blankets that had been dragged around the maternity ward of the hospital all day on top.

“Can you... can you please hold me? Please?” Thalia asked quietly, muffled by her eleventeen thousand blankets.

“Yeah, I was going to stay over for the first night anyway to help you, remember? We talked about this?”

“I don’t remember, but I don’t care. Put on pajamas and come cuddle me,” Thalia demanded, so Jeremy went out again, locking the door behind him, went and got his prepared overnight bag with pajamas, a change of clothes, and stuff like deodorant and his toothbursh and toothpaste, as well as Thalia’s hospital bag and phone.

He ran up the stairs, ready to be out of the cold for good, and unlocked the door quickly, let himself in, and shut and locked it behind him. Neither Thalia nor Olive made a sound.

He used Thalia’s bathroom, got desssed into his pajamas and stuff, brushed his teeth, and decided to shower tomorrow, either in the morning here or at his own house after he went home, whenever that ended up being.

Finally, he came out of the bathroom, set his bag down on Thalia’s floor, up against a wall, knowing that she wouldn’t care as long as she didn’t trip over it, and climbed into bed with her.

Thalia hummed and shifted as Jeremy got settled, already at least half asleep herself, probably closer.

He wrapped his arms around her, cuddling up to her, knowing exactly what position Thalia felt best with, spooning her perfectly. Thalia melted into the touch , her head right under Jeremy’s chin, smiling in her sleep faintly, turning her head to be closer to him, someone who was warm and there for her, there to hold her and protect her little exhausted body as she slept.

Jeremy felt himself falling asleep easily, having been up since five thirty in the morning. God, that felt like so long ago, when he’d gotten up to his alarm and showered, getting ready for a regular day at school, but then Thalia had called him, and instead of suffering through school, he watched her suffer through labour.

He didn’t want Thalia to hurt, but he supposed it was better than school, fucking high school, go figure, he’d rather help his best friend through labour than learn about math principles or whatever.

What if this had just been some normal ass day, him picking up thalia to get to school, since the bus didn’t stop around here and she was far too pregnant to ride her bike and had been since at least six months in. It’d become routine, and he hadn’t missed one day of school since beginning to drive her, knowing that she counted on him to show up every day, unless she was throwing up or something or just felt too miserable for school, which was already really bad when you She was that pregnant, especially when it was absolutely freezing outside.

What if he’d just picked up Thalia as usual, her wearing maternity yoga pants and a big baggy shirt, her parka or something, looking tired and miserable as she hopped in his car? When would Olive actually have ended up getting born, and how would the events of the day change because it didn’t happen today?

However, at this point, Jeremy, with his noise tickled slightly by Thalia’s extremely messy yet freshly washed hair, was getting too tired for that kind of theorising.

He got closer to Thalia, impossibly closer, and rambled in whispers into in her ear, though she was probably asleep and wouldn’t realise;

“I’ve got you. I've got you. I’ve got you and you’re safe. You have a beautiful new baby girl, Olive, you’re safe and at home now, and you’re gonna have a tough couple of weeks now, but I’m going to help you and be there for you and I’m only going to leave if I’m stressing you out or something and you ask me to leave. Or if you’re just insisting that you need to be the only sleep deprived one, which might be a good idea and I can totally see you yelling at me for that, but... yeah. I love you so, so much, and I’m going to protect you and Olive. I'll never leave you.”

Thalia smiled in her sleep, and she too shifted impossibly closer to Jeremy, her face now in his chest, her hands clasped in his, her face framed by her messy blue hair that he’d helped her cut and dye one day in November, after she’d escaped her abusive dad, and wanted to become someone new.

She’d gotten so much better after getting away, and now she was going to have a kid, which meant she’d be really stressed, but he’d help her, no matter fucking what.

He closed his eyes and let all thoughts drift away as he sank into darkness, soft, warm, safe darkness, with Thalia right next to him. He wasn’t going to leave her and she wasn’t going to leave him, and Olive, the new little warmth tucked in the bassinet right next to the bed, wasn’t going anywhere either.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this all in one day and i!!! am!!! exhausted!!! that’s why the ending to this is kinda drawn out i was banging out the last words to get them in before midnight and it was a close call.
> 
> press f for both me and thalia, tumblr is @justiceforalanabeck, and wear your goddamned seatbelts


End file.
